Online Collaboration Tools

It's a common problem - you have developed some very useful excel charts and dashboards and now you need to publish and share them on the web. There are lots of excel add-ins and add-ons (and I must have tried them all) - the problem is most will either be very expensive or disappoint you either in terms of their restrictions or how nicely they present your data.

I have been invited to participate in a software beta test which is using an online tool called Trello to coordinate test feedback. Trello is very simple and powerful and sits halfway between a forum and a wiki. It is a great tool for capturing and structuring feedback from a community in a really easy way and very compatible with a bioteams style of working.

A serial bank robber was once asked why he robbed banks? He replied "because that's where the money is!" Why have I developed a new discipline called Process Physics? Same answer - because that's where the money is (in a process). "Process Physics" is the discipline of using mathematical process models in conjunction with simulation technology to spot the "money left on the table" in any business processes . My new screencast provides a short hands-on introduction.

Why cant we have an Excel-like tool for business simulation? After developing many bespoke business simulations a thought suddenly entered my head: why can't we have something which is to business simulation what a spreadsheet is to financial modelling? Just imagine a tool which let a user, who understands a business area but has no technical skills, build and deploy sophisticated graphical management simulations in under an hour!

I believe that products like Second Life could provide powerful immersive platforms to link together web applications (eg via web services) in much more engaging ways for various collaborative group applications such as team games and business simulations.

Online WhiteBoards (OWB) aka collaborative whiteboards are a new class of web tool, which let remote users interact over the web in real-time using a shared virtual whiteboard. I have reviewed 5 of them and believe, that whilst they are not yet fully mature, OWBs could become valuable support tools for virtual brainstorming or open innovation activities.

From this page you can join, login to, and fully interact with the bioteams swarm community using its main unified messageboard.

Many company executives are now questionning the value of 'traditional' forms of teambuilding such as executive retreats or staff games (e.g. Executive team building: stop wasting their time). Recently I ran across a New York technnology company GoCrossOffice pioneering a more novel approach....

With such an ever-growing list of collaboration platforms and applications of all shapes and sizes I thought it would be useful to gather together five of my favourite Collaboration Software Directories in one place.